On Multiple Appearances: An Analysis of the Performing Body in Kitt Johnson’s Drift

TY - JOUR

T1 - On Multiple Appearances

T2 - An Analysis of the Performing Body in Kitt Johnson’s Drift

AU - Bork Petersen, Franziska

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - In the article, I challenge the prevalent use of phenomenology in dance scholarship, which focusses on the dancer's experience of her body when dancing. This approach often implies the problematic assumption that the dancer's experience is immediately transferred to the spectators who, in turn, are universally 'moved' by her dancing body. Instead of acknowledging that dance is a product of historically and culturally specific circumstances, such an analytical perspective ultimately tends to mystify dance. In this article I propose a different use of analytical tools in dance scholarship: I employ phenomenological reduction and epoché to focus on how dancing bodies appear in a stage context. To test the ability of these tools to explore dancing bodies from a third-person perspective, I analyze Danish choreographer Kitt Johnson's solo performance Drift (2011), focussing on her variable physical appearance. While phenomenology helps me to describe the multiple and radically different guises Johnson assumes in her piece, my analysis does not, ultimately, aim to distil a truer, more real being from her appearances, as is often the case in phenomenological analyses. Instead, I complement my analytical approach with the Deleuzian notion of becoming animal, suggesting that Johnson stages what, in Judith Butler's terms, could be called a critical contingency of bodily appearance.

AB - In the article, I challenge the prevalent use of phenomenology in dance scholarship, which focusses on the dancer's experience of her body when dancing. This approach often implies the problematic assumption that the dancer's experience is immediately transferred to the spectators who, in turn, are universally 'moved' by her dancing body. Instead of acknowledging that dance is a product of historically and culturally specific circumstances, such an analytical perspective ultimately tends to mystify dance. In this article I propose a different use of analytical tools in dance scholarship: I employ phenomenological reduction and epoché to focus on how dancing bodies appear in a stage context. To test the ability of these tools to explore dancing bodies from a third-person perspective, I analyze Danish choreographer Kitt Johnson's solo performance Drift (2011), focussing on her variable physical appearance. While phenomenology helps me to describe the multiple and radically different guises Johnson assumes in her piece, my analysis does not, ultimately, aim to distil a truer, more real being from her appearances, as is often the case in phenomenological analyses. Instead, I complement my analytical approach with the Deleuzian notion of becoming animal, suggesting that Johnson stages what, in Judith Butler's terms, could be called a critical contingency of bodily appearance.

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0905-6380

VL - 24

SP - 44

EP - 53

JO - Nordic Theatre Studies

JF - Nordic Theatre Studies

ER -